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www.citizen.com               April 2, 2008

Editor, The Citizen: "Set up" is defined as "a contest prearranged to result in an easy or faked victory". The selectman's meeting of March 27 will live in the annals of Moultonborough's selectman history as a dark day. With an obviously pre-stacked audience of supporters of the RSPT's defunct 'country club', two of our selectmen chose to puff themselves up, if only in their own mind, to some perverted level of justification. Selectmen Charest and Crawford obviously conspired to use their bully pulpit to express their point of view and worse, publicly condemn the MCA and its members. (For the sake the above selectmen's naiveté and anyone else that may think I am accusing them of something I am not, "bully pulpit" is defined as "an advantageous position used for making one's view known or rallying support") Their indignation was motivated by the satirical response to a publicly published letter written by one member of the RSPT that had been posted on the MCA website. This response was not written by any member of the MCA and was removed (with apologies) from the website at the first notice of aversion by selectman Joel Mudget days prior to the meeting of the 27th. Assuming that Mr. Mudget and Ms. St. Amand seemingly accepted the removal and apology one would think that the incident was over. However, this was not to be. I suggest it all smells like the above defined "setup".

I will say here and now to Mr. Charest and Ms. Crawford that if you are selectman, governor or president and you want to express your support for an "offended compatriot" and you want to do that as a citizen, you ought not do it at the venue at which you preside, unless you are willing to deal with the criticism of which you are deserving. Cowardice is not too strong a word to describe this prearranged lynching.

To the St. Amands (whose letter was satirized) I will say, as a native that has seen any number of pompous nouveau riche come to this area, the first thing they want, 20 minutes after the ink is dried on the deed to their "Mc-Mansion on the Lake", is to change everything that makes this rural area desirable. I will also say that when you write a letter to the editor, or publish it in any other forum, you set yourself up for criticism. Realizing that you may be naive to such a concept, I will add here that I did not take the obvious opportunity for pot shots at your letter. I chose instead to let your letter speak for itself. It clearly showed your arrogance and lack of concern for the rest of us taxpayers, even to the most challenged of readers.

But back to our selectmen Charest and Crawford; methinks this vainly attempted assassination was not totally inspired by the Web site's misjudgment. Rather it came as a culmination of several recent challenges to your fiefdom. Facts speak for themselves: (A) the challenge to your 180-degree flip-flop on the $10-$13 million recreation center et al, (B) the 60 percent and 50 percent losses (respectively) of your voter support by a brief write in campaign, (C) the devastating loss of the proposed taxpayer supported country club (article 9), (D) and the fact that 58% of the voters in Moultonborough have weighed in, they want SB2 style voting for all town spending issues. We know how you two feel about these issues but your public whipping was not only uncalled for, it was an embarrassment to your position as selectmen and the responsibilities you have sworn to uphold.

With respect to some of the challenges you put forth I will offer the following opinion. While I may not personally agree with the methodology of the satirical format that the author chose for his comments, I support and defend his right to say it as a basic precept of our constitution, just as I support the St. Amands' right publish their effort in favor of the proposed golden palace, even at the risk of criticism. Mr. Charest, in his personal tirade, claims that we are "losing our rights little by little". I suggest that disguising his bully pulpit as a "citizen's speech", in a denunciation of the public that are exercising their rights, is a larger attempt at whittling away our rights. He also seems to think that Moultonborough has been nearly destroyed in "two short years". Funny, in his "personal" remarks condemning SB2 he spoke of the good old days when the women (who were not allowed the vote then) brought the bandages to town meeting to patch up the men folks. How did we ever survive that, Ed? I will say to Ms. Crawford that I have not heard, read or written that the present administration is "dishonest and power hungry" as you said in your portion of the screed, so stop crafting your own words. Words such as spin, tomfoolery, amazing, callous and cavalier have been used. I was, however the recipient of "belittling" at one of your selectmen's meetings, and accused of spreading of lies and misinformation by one of your fellow selectmen, while sitting in his selectman's role. Again, I will say that trying to decipher when you folks are selectmen and when you are not is like chasing a rat through a wood pile. As for the "negativism" that you claim is ubiquitous, the last I checked with Mr. Webster, "disagreement, dissent and opposition" are nowhere defined as negativism. So let's call a stop to that tired allegation. I would suggest that you keep selectmen's meeting for the business of the town and express your personal opinions and grievances at such times that you are not taking advantage of the assembled audience in the venue of the meeting you chair.

Rick Heath

Moultonborough